Windies win Test with record run-chase
Captain Steve Waugh said there was little more Australia could have done to prevent the West Indies from creating Test cricket history in Antigua.
The Windies won the fourth Test by three wickets, reaching 7-418 in their second innings - the highest successful run chase in Tests.
It surpassed India's winning total of 4-406 against the Windies in Trinidad in 1976.
Australia still finished with a 3-1 series victory but without the historic Caribbean clean sweep which drove the tired tourists through the last encounter.
"It was a great Test match and congratulations to the West Indies, and it was a great series too," Waugh said.
"We really gave it everything we had and the West Indies were really just too good."
The Windies began the final day needing 47 runs, with four wickets in hand, and they looked in trouble when Shivnarine Chanderpaul (104) was dismissed by Brett Lee (4-63) in the third over of the morning.
But Omari Banks (47 not out) and Vasbert Drakes (27 not out) shared an unbeaten stand of 46, with Drakes almost taking the match out of Australia's reach when he clobbered Stuart MacGill (1-149) high into the Andy Roberts Stand to reduce the target to 14 runs.
Windies captain Brian Lara said the victory meant more to him than his Test record individual score of 375, on the same ground, and his first-class record score of 501.
"It's the greatest cricketing experience I've had," Lara said.
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